


Dead Weight

by Babyru4



Category: Half-Life
Genre: Adrenaline, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Anxiety Attacks, Broken Bones, Carrying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Death, Electrocution, Established Relationship, Exhaustion, Fire Powers, Half-Life VR But the AI is Self-Aware, How Do I Tag, Multi, Mutant Powers, Nightmares, Not Really Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyamory, Tags Contain Spoilers, Tags May Change, Temporary Character Death, The Author Regrets Everything, Zombie Apocalypse, beyond this point tags will contain spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:21:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26989705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Babyru4/pseuds/Babyru4
Summary: Gordon understood why he had to wear the HEV suit, but he still felt like he had the right to hate it. It was so hard to put on, it was bulky and hard to move in, it was even more of a hassle to take it off. He hated wearing it.He hated wearing it until now, of course, when he felt the dull spark of the shock go through him as the anti-mass-spectrometer or whatever exploded.-----Gordon's the only one left alive in Black Mesa after the anti-mass-spectrometer exploded. He's not, however, the only one left in Black Mesa.
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman, Benrey/Tommy Coolatta, Benrey/Tommy Coolatta/Gordon Freeman, Bubby/Dr. Coomer (Half-Life), Gordon Freeman/Forzen, Tommy Coolatta/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 8
Kudos: 85





	1. Survival

**Author's Note:**

> HLVRAI zombie au :D

Gordon understood why he had to wear the HEV suit, but he still felt like he had the right to hate it. It was so hard to put on, it was bulky and hard to move in, it was even more of a hassle to take it off. He hated wearing it.

He hated wearing it until now, of course, when he felt the dull spark of the shock go through him as the anti-mass-spectrometer or whatever exploded. Honestly, his mind was a little fried due to what had happened. His head pounded and his ears were ringing. He slowly opened his eyes and noticed the dead body.

Oh shit, there was a dead body.

Oh  _ shit,  _ there was a dead  _ Benrey. _

Gordon immediately got up, felt sick upon doing so, and ran over to the security guard, who lied on the floor breathless. He panicked for a second before grabbing their hand and putting two fingers to the wrist in an attempt to check the pulse.

Benrey was dead. He barely knew them, yeah, but he kinda felt bad. Like it was his fault.

He slowly got up this time, looking down at the body. Okay, wait, that was… weird.

Before the explosion, Benrey looked… different. Gordon didn’t know how to describe it, they were just normal. A bit short, twinky, painfully pale, just… human.

Now, however, they were bigger, their hair didn’t fit into his helmet anymore, showing to be matted and black, there was a shadow around his eyes, their skin had a blue tint to it, and their teeth had sharpened significantly.

Gordon stared for a few seconds, jumping when Benrey opened their eyes and looked at him. Another little detail that was different were their eyes. They had turned from looking normal and human to looking more cat-like.

“huh?” Benrey asked, sitting up.

“God, don’t— don’t scare me like that. Do you need help up?” Gordon held out his hand to Benrey. A part of him was glad he was alive, the other part was groaning at his return.

Benrey took Gordon’s hand and pulled himself up, dusting off his pants before he noticed just how tall he was. He took a moment to check himself out, giving a small “hm,” as they did. They put their hand onto Gordon’s head, which Gordon waved off.

“Why did you— How are you— You know what, I don’t even want to know. We have to see if everyone else is okay, come on.” Gordon started making his way out of the room with Benrey following.

“Oh my god!” Gordon turned away from the room as soon as he stepped into it, but the image was already burned into his head. Everyone in the room was dead.

“Holy shit,” Benrey muttered. “they’re all uh… they’re all napping on the job.”

Gordon was about to shoot something back, but when he glanced over at Benrey and saw how they’re expression wasn’t as cocky as he had assumed, he decided to keep his mouth shut.

“...C’mon. Let’s just go and see if anyone else is alive.” Gordon finally spoke up, turning around and carefully walking through the room. Benrey followed again, stepping over the dead bodies instead of walking around them like how Gordon was doing.

“oh, shit, wait.” Benrey said as they both stepped out of the room and into the hallway. “you think Tommy’s still good?” He asked, looking to Gordon. Gordon just stared back, confused.

“Who?”

“Tommy! he should’ve been on his lunch break, i’m gonna go check on him.” Benrey replied, starting to walk off.

“Hey, wait!” Gordon yelled, huffing and then following after Benrey.

Benrey made their way to the break room with Gordon in tow. Benrey entered the breakroom, immediately yelling out “TOMMY!” as he did. Gordon could hear a cheerful “Benrey!” in response.

Gordon entered the room after and immediately froze up when he saw the man Benrey was squatting next to. The black-haired man, who Gordon assumed was Tommy, had three soda cans lodged deep into his body. One right on his temple, one right in the nook of his neck, and one right above his neck. His eyes shot up to meet Gordon’s and Gordon noticed that his eyes were dilated quite a bit.

One of the most noticeable things about him, however, was that his legs were crushed under a soda vending machine. Gordon stepped forward to try and help Benrey lift the vending machine off him, but Benrey apparently already had it covered. Benrey effortlessly lifted up the shattered machine and helped Tommy up.

Benrey definitely wasn’t that strong before. Gordon took a mental note of that, it could be useful in the future.

Benrey frantically helped Tommy up, muttering something and holding him to their side so that they weren’t on the floor anymore. Tommy looked up to meet Gordon’s eyes again.

“Hi!” Tommy smiled, despite his mangled and disfigured legs. “I’m Tommy!”

“Gordon.” He kept glancing at his legs. Benrey adjusted, holding Tommy in one arm. “You look…” Gordon bit his tongue. Maybe telling someone they look dead after just meeting them isn’t the best idea. “How did you survive? Are you… okay?”

“I…” Tommy trailed off, looking down at his body. He fiddled with the sprite can in his torso, pushing it down a bit. It budged only slightly and Tommy flinched. A small droplet of blood soaked his lab coat a bit more and Tommy hurriedly readjusted it so he was no longer bleeding. “Y-Yeah. Yeah, I think so?” He looked back up to Gordon and smiled again. “I don’t know, I don’t think I…” His smile faded again. “I don’t th-think I did.”

“we should, uh, probably get going,” Benrey cut in, taking a few steps closer to Gordon with Tommy still in his arms.

“Oh, yeah. Definitely.” Benrey walked out of the room and continued down the hall with Tommy. Gordon followed after.

There were more dead scientists in the halls, but soon Gordon learned to just deal with them. He did feel a little bad though. Okay, a little was an understatement, he felt a lot bad. These were actual people and he just… he somehow killed them.

“Did you know anyone?” Tommy interrupted his thoughts, smiling at him from Benrey’s shoulder.

“Hm?”  
“he’s asking if you knew anyone in the office. we could go find them if you did but I dou—”

“I knew Dr. Coomer.”

“which one?” Benrey remarked. Tommy chuckled and Gordon couldn’t help but laugh a bit too.

“Uh, the original, I think? He worked in waste disposal for a while, but transferred to wikipedia cause it was his ‘second passion’ or something. He’d probably be there.”

“Let’s go find him then!” Benrey sped up his waking slightly as Tommy patted him on the back twice. Gordon started speed walking to catch up with them.


	2. Wikipedia

There were a few aliens here and there in Black Mesa but they couldn’t hold a candle to the horror that slithered down his spine when he felt something— some _ one _ pull on his leg.

Dead scientists occasionally would come back to life, but instead of being human again, they were what Gordon had seen in that one TV show Joshua somehow had an obsession with.  _ Braindead Zombies. _

They weren’t much of a threat though. They were too weak to do anything a lot of the time and, luckily, Benrey had a gun on him and would just shoot them in the head and call Gordon a “little piss baby” before moving on.

It didn’t take long for Gordon to come to the conclusion that his frien— that Tommy and Benrey might be zombies too. Just not man-eating braindead ones. So that was a relief.

Gordon didn’t wanna think about that though. What he thought about instead was how fucking  _ tired  _ he was. God. His heavy feet dragged across the tile floors with more weight than what he had felt a few hours ago. They had been walking for  _ ages.  _ He had no clue how Benrey wasn’t tired. Maybe it was a zombie thing. He didn’t know.

“Can we take a break? My feet are killing me,” Gordon finally complained. Benrey stopped for a second and scanned the area.

“we’re almost there, you’re fine,” Benrey replied. Gordon groaned. Tommy had been half asleep for a while now, leaning his head against Benrey’s shoulder. Gordon was kinda jealous of Tommy right now, to be honest. He envied the fact he didn’t have the opportunity to  _ sleep. _

It didn’t matter, though, because soon they had ended up in the server room for wikipedia. Gordon entered first, looking around the room to see dead scientists and busted, exploded servers. “Jesus fuck,” he muttered, looking around to see if he could find Coomer. He had a rising feeling that Coomer might actually be...

“Dr. Coomer?” He called out, listening closely for an answer. There was none.

“Dr. Coomer?” He repeated. No answer.

Gordon started actually panicking a bit. Dr. Coomer was his friend, he can’t be dead.

“Dr. Coomer!” He yelled one last time.

“i don’t think he’s h—”

“Hello, Gordon!”

“oh shit.” Gordon didn’t bother responding to Benrey, immediately running in the direction of Dr. Coomer’s voice. He rounded a corner and took a step back, gasping slightly at the sight of Dr. Coomer.

Coomer was weakly gripping onto one of the broken servers. The hems of his clothes were singed and his hair was fried. He looked like he had been severely electrocuted, which wasn’t entirely impossible, of course. Coomer looked up to Gordon, his eyes were wide and bloodshot. Coomer smiled. 

“Hello, Gordon!” He repeated.

“Hello, Dr. Coomer.”

Gordon ran over to him and hugged him, but shot away from him as soon as he did. A giant shock traveled through his HEV suit and into his body when he hugged Coomer. Coomer noticed this and looked over himself.

“Gordon, I appear to be electrified!”

“Yeah, is that so?” He laughed, shaking his hand in pain.

“Yes!” Coomer smiled at him again and Gordon laughed even more.

“It’s nice to have you back, Coomer.” Gordon smiled at him. “C’mon, I have to introduce you to Benrey and Tommy— If Tommy’s awake that is.” He started leading Coomer back to the small group.

After introductions, they started back on their path again. That is, until Coomer slowed down, thinking about something to himself.

“Got something on your m-mind?” Tommy asked, having woken up an hour or two ago.

“Ah, just someone close to me! I hope they are okay...”

“Oh? Who?” Tommy tilted his head slightly, giving Coomer a questioning look.

“Bubby!”

“Bubby?” Tommy asked. “Oh, Bubby!” He clapped his hands together, grinning. “I know where Bubby could be! They’re not too far!” Tommy grinned at him before mumbling some directions to Benrey.

Coomer grinned, catching up to Benrey’s pace again and humming to himself. Gordon caught up to them, still a bit tired even though the shock Coomer had given him energized him quite a bit.

Gordon quickly checked rooms while they walked, trying to see if he could spot anyone else who was alive. He eventually thought he did, seeing someone standing up in the room.

“Hey, hold on, theres someone in here.” He motioned to the team for them to stop and opened the door more. “Hello?” He called into it.

The zombie turned around, drooling at the mouth with shallow eyes. They gripped onto a desk and moved a bit closer to Gordon. Gordon stepped forward into the room, putting up his hand. “Helloo?” He asked.

The zombie stared at him for a moment before launching themselves directly towards him. Gordon stepped back in shock but the zombie already got him, clashing into his body and knocking him down onto the ground with full force. It pried at the panels on his HEV suit and scratched at his face. 

Luckily, It didn’t manage to break his skin before Coomer punched the zombie off of Gordon in one full swoop. Benrey shot at it until it stopped moving. Gordon’s heart pounded in his chest and he bonked his head onto the cold tile.

“Are you okay?” Coomer asked.

“i think he’s dead.”

“M-Mr. Freeman!” Tommy called. Gordon shut his eyes tight.

Sleep. He just needed. Sleep. Please. Please, just let him sleep. He’s too goddamn tired for this.

“You might be right, Benrey!”

“I’m fine!” Gordon whined through gritted teeth, sighing right after. He started sitting up, putting his face in his hand.

There was a second of silence before Tommy spoke up. “I think we sh-should take a break, yeah?” He forced a smile and looked to Benrey, who nodded at him.

Gordon nodded too. God, he needed a break. Coomer tried to help Gordon stand up but pulled away once he remembered that he’d probably end up electrocuting him again.

Gordon got up, wobbling on his feet. He put a hand to his chest to get an actual reference at how fast his heart was beating. Of course, he felt nothing because of the thick sheet of metal and the fabric between his hand and his chest. 

He didn’t even notice Benrey coming up behind him until they put their hand on his shoulder and tugged slightly. Gordon shot around and sighed in relief when he realized it was only Benrey. Benrey gave him a sympathetic look for a second before turning away.

“Well, good news! These doors lock!” Coomer said, smiling at the group. He didn’t even have to look at the doors to know that.

“...How do you know that?” Gordon asked, raising an eyebrow at Coomer.

“I’m afraid if I discussed it, Bubby and I could be in legal trouble, Gordon!”

“nice.”

“Forget I asked.” Gordon muttered back, trudging over to a chair on the other side of the room and collapsing into it. “I’m going to bed. G’night, guys.”

“G-Good night, Mr. Freeman!”

“Good night, Gordon!”

“night.”


	3. Nap Time :) [Bonus Tomrey Chapter]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because the fic focuses on Gordon, I can't focus on many shippy moments (except Gorzen of course but we're not there yet)   
> This is a problem cause ya boy is a hopeless romantic so I might post short shippy bonus chapters that don't involve Gordon

Gordon passed out first. Coomer soon followed after, falling asleep in one of the corners. That only left Tommy and Benrey awake. Benrey was leaned next to the door, holding Tommy in their arms. Tommy was sitting between Benrey’s legs, humming quietly.

“Hey, Benrey?” Tommy spoke up, breaking the near silence between them.

“huh?” Benrey replied. They put their head onto Tommy’s shoulder, resting it against Tommy’s.

“You know I l-love you, right?”

“yep.”

Tommy laughed a bit. Benrey loved that noise. “Do you love me back?”

“mhh-hmm. whole lots.”

Tommy kissed Benrey’s cheek, running his hand into Benrey’s hair. “You look a lot different than before the res-resonance cascade. Is that…” Tommy trailed off, not finishing his question.

Benrey just made a small noise, not answering Tommy’s unfinished question.

Tommy made a small noise back in response.

It wasn’t long until Benrey fell asleep on Tommy’s shoulder. Tommy fell asleep soon after.


	4. Pyromania

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry I fucked up my schedule lol. Trying to update on tuesdays, but we'll fuck around and find out i guess  
> Anyways ive decided this is my fanfiction and i can do what i want with it so im making gorzen and frenreylatta both canon now

_ Gordon was out of breath, running for who knows how long as undead chased after him. They wouldn’t relent, reaching out as they chased him. Gordon was panting, barely being able to hear the voices yelling for him from the crowd, much less make them out. Were they even yelling? It might’ve been just groaning. It was all so blurry. _

_ One of the zombies managed to grab at his ankle and he fell forward, dull pain shooting through his jaw as he fell onto the cold ground He reached out, gripping at the floor and trying to crawl away to no avail. They clawed at him, and he covered his head with his hands.  _

“Ow! Fuck!” Gordon yelled as he was shocked awake by Coomer’s hand.

“Good morning, Gordon! It’s time to get a move on!” Coomer smiled. “You looked like you were having a nightmare!”

Gordon decided to stay quiet instead of giving Coomer an actual answer.

In a short while, the team were moving on towards the room Bubby was in. It didn’t feel as long as it had been going, but that might’ve been the fact Gordon actually felt well-rested for once.

“is someone smoking?” Benrey asked, sniffing the air a bit. Tommy joined in.

“No? Why?” Gordon asked.

“S-Something smells like— like smoke!” Tommy explained, looking confused around the hall.

Coomer sniffed the air and gasped before he rushed ahead down the hallway.

“COOMER!” Gordon yelled, running after Coomer with Benrey and Tommy. Coomer was surprisingly fast for a small, old man.

“holy shit,” Benrey muttered as they rounded the corner. There was a door open and smoke poured out of the top. Coomer had already ran into the room, muttering something to himself. Gordon took a deep breath and ran after him.

The smoke fogged up Gordon’s vision and made his eyes water. Coomer was on the other side of the room, struggling with a door handle. “Coomer, you—” Gordon honestly didn’t even know where he was going with that sentence but he shut up when Coomer reeled his foot back and kicked the door open with all his might.

Coomer instantly yelled out “BUBBY!”

Someone yelled back “COOMER!” and Coomer rushed in. There was some talking that Gordon couldn’t entirely make sense of due to the fact he noticed that the room Coomer rushed into was on fire.  _ Very  _ much on fire.

Gordon rushed into the room too, trying to make sure Coomer didn’t die. Again. A person was strapped to a surgical table in the middle of the room and Coomer was trying his hardest to free them. It was working pretty well, but Gordon decided to pitch in anyways.

Gordon only ended up getting one of the straps undone before Coomer had fully freed them. Coomer helped them up and off the table and Gordon made sure they could both get out quickly and safely. He continued to run down the hallway, motioning for Benrey to follow him. He kept running until they were far from the fire.

Gordon panted, putting his hands on his knees as soon as he slowed down to a stop. “Jesus fuck.” He glanced over to Coomer and the other person. Now that a bit of stress had faded away, Gordon could get an actual look at the other person’s appearance. Because, of course, they didn’t  _ actually  _ look human.

Their eyes somehow were both full of life and death at the same time. It freaked Gordon out a bit, but not much more than the others had. Their labcoat was buttoned up, but only half way. They were wearing a blue turtle neck under it, which was ripped from right below their chest to down past where the lab coat was buttoned up. From what you could see, their flesh had seemed to have ripped or been cut open, exposing their organs and guts. Okay, that made Gordon a bit squeamish.

“It’s rude to stare.” They snapped at Gordon, giving him a dirty look.

“Sorry.”

Coomer tugged on the person’s sleeve and gave a small smile. They huffed, rolling their eyes and turning to Gordon. 

“I’m... Bubby.” Not a name, but okay.

“Gordon.” Gordon smiled at Bubby. Bubby smiled back slightly. “That’s Tommy—”

“H-Hi!”

“—And that’s Benrey.”

“hey.”

Bubby nodded towards them, taking a small step towards Coomer and taking his hand. Coomer gave it a small squeeze, trying to show them they were safe and sound.

There was a moment of silence before adrenaline ran out and Gordon realized what he had done, slumping against one of the walls. He stared up at the bright fluorescent lights with wide eyes and his stress levels went back up to a hundred percent. “Oh my god, I could’ve died in there.”

“But you didn’t!” Coomer chimed in. Gordon knew he was trying to help, but it just made him feel worse.

Gordon let out a mix of groan and nervous laughter. Yeah, no, he didn’t die. Obviously from the fact he was still standing, blinking, and breathing. A part of him wished he had died. It would’ve gotten him out of this mess, at least.

“Can we  _ please  _ take a break? I know we just had one, but—”

“i can carry you.”

“Huh?” Gordon asked, turning his head towards Benrey and cocking it slightly. “But, you’re carrying Tommy.”

“wow, dumb freeman doesn’t even know i got two hands? Idiot,” Bnerey teased. “If you don’t wanna be held, you can just s—”

“No, you know what? Fuck it, hold me.” Gordon held out his arms. He was too mentally exhausted to feel shame right now.

“sweet.” Benrey picked Gordon up with little effort, holding him up with one arm. Gordon immediately relaxed a bit. He could get used to this, being honest.

“We should keep m-moving,” Tommy clapped his hands together and smiled “F-Find a way out of here now that we’ve all b-been reunited!”

They set off down the hallway, together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know theres a lack of tommy content dont worry you get a whole scene between him and gordon next chapter


	5. Soda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry im off schedule AGAIN lotsa shit has been happening and my computers broken so im writing this on my phone

It had been a while, maybe four days since Bubby had joined the group. Quite a bit had happened since then.

First of all, zombies were all fully up now. They wandered the halls and attacked the group— or each other— when they had the chance. They had managed to deal with them, though.

Aliens were there too. Not as many as the zombies, but enough to cause some small problems. Headcrabs were popping up the most.

Benrey started looting corpses. At first, it was only for weapons. Gordon didn’t want to take anything from the dead bodies for obvious reasons, so Benrey “did it for him.” Tommy managed to loot a corpse on his own at one point and was surprisingly skilled with a gun. He wasn’t as good with gun safety, however.

Coomer and Bubby didn’t need weapons. Bubby explained it by snapping their fingers and lighting a nearby crate on fire. That at least explained how the room they were trapped in lit on fire. Coomer just responded “I already have guns, Gordon!” and then flexed his muscles, which made Bubby go red and avert their gaze.

The worst of all, though, was that the military must have gotten word of the resonance cascade and came to wipe the zombies out before they could spread anything. This would’ve been a great help to Gordon, if he wasn’t travelling around with four zombies that he  _ really  _ didn’t want to die just yet.

Luckily, Coomer’s knowledge of which doors lock and which doors don’t and Bubby’s knowledge of almost every hiding spot in Black Mesa came in handy. There were multiple times where Coomer stood pressed up against a locked door, Bubby watched from a nearby corner, and Benrey, Gordon, and Tommy all were huddled up under one of the tables, praying that the military didn’t barge in and find them all.

Gordon hadn’t seen Benrey show fear until then. There might have been a time where Gordon held back tears and squeezed Tommy and Benrey’s hands to try and give comfort. Or maybe get comfort? A mix of both.

It was stressful as all hell, but they managed to persevere.

They had also found a way out of Black Mesa. They had made it to a few deserted canyons and ravines, where either the blazing sun beat down on them hard or the darkness was just a bit too much to see through. Even if they didn’t become unbearably hot or were able to clearly see more than two feet in front of them, the cliffs were too steep and they were trapped in by giant barbed fences and walls. Even if they could get over, where would they go? They’d be lost in the desert. It was nice to get a breath of fresh air every once and while, though.

They were outside this time. Gordon was sitting alone with Tommy, drinking soda and watching Bubby, Coomer, and Benrey fuck around with a headcrab.

"Bitch!" Bubby yelled at the headcrab before kicking it into the air. Their voice was faint, being a bit far away from Gordon and Tommy.

“You think we’ll ever g-get out of here, Mr. Freeman?” Tommy asked, turning his attention towards Gordon.

"Dr. Dumb Bitch!" Coomer yells, punching the headcrab into the air with full force.

"nice."

"Of course I do!" Gordon lied. Well, half-lied. He wasn't fully sure whether they'd get out or if they would die there.

"uhhhh… xbox. ell oh ell." Benrey weakly stepped on it.

Tommy smiled at him before looking back to the group.

"Weak! Let me do it!" Bubby yelled, before jumping onto the headcrab and then falling back on their ass.

"Benrey likes you."

"Huh?"

"I know you probably think that he's annoying sometimes but I can tell that he does actually care about you."

"Oh. I… I care about them too." 

There was a silence for a moment before Tommy spoke up. "Okay, what— what are they doing?"

Gordon looked over to the group, seeing Benrey pour soda onto the headcrab. He laughed, "What  _ are  _ they doing?"

Coomer put his hand onto the headcrab, electrifying it and counting down from three. As soon as he got to one, Bubby lit the headcrab, still being electrified by Coomer, on fire.

There was a small explosion, and when Gordon looked back, he saw the others laying on the ground, unmoving. "Oh shit!" He yelled before he saw Bubby's hand rise up and make a thumbs up.

"We're okay!" They yelled.

"Benrey might be dead, Bubby-dear!"

"Benrey's dead!"

"Nah, i'm cool."

"Never mind!"

Tommy started laughing, swishing his soda can around in the air, almost spilling it all over himself and the ground, before falling onto his back and staring up at the sky. Gordon laid down with him.

"God, I  _ wish _ I had powers like theirs." Tommy admitted, his smile turning more relaxed. Gordon realised Tommy had a very nice smile.

"What do you mean?" Gordon asked, raising an eyebrow at Tommy. Tommy sat up, looking down at his soda can.

"Y'know, C-Coomer has electrokinesis, Bubby has pyrokinesis, Benrey has— Benrey's definitely stronger than before. W-wish I had more than just shattered legs I can barely feel and—"

"You can't feel it?"

"Oh, w-well, yeah but it's very dulled. I can't fully feel anything."

"Huh…"

"Anyways, a-all I have is broken legs and—" Tommy put his can down and fiddled with the one in his neck a bit. "And these."

"Yeah, I understand how you feel."

"Like, imagine if I could— uh…" Tommy glanced around before picking up his soda can. "If I could control soda!" He joked, closing his eyes and pretending to focus hard on the soda and lift it out of the can.

Gordon laughed, before he glanced down at the soda can, doing a double take.

"Holy shit!" He yelled, staring wide-eyed at the small bit of soda that had been lifted out of the can. 

Tommy opened his eyes and the bit of soda fell down back into the can. "D-did I…" Tommy didn't finish his question, attempting to lift it out of the can again. It came out and started bending to his will. "Look!" He yelled, turning his attention to the group. "Guys! Guys, l-look!"

The group came over, staring as Tommy moved the soda around. After a bit of testing and playing around with it, they figured out they could make the soda semi-solid. They could move limbs and objects through it with enough force, but it would stay in shape and only give slightly.

"do you think you could make, y'know… legs?" Benrey asked, tilting their head.

"Maybe. I'd need more soda, though," Tommy replied, playing around with the soda a bit more.

"Say no more." Bubby stuck a hand into their guts, the noise making Gordon squirm. "Don't be such a baby," they gave Gordon a side-eye and pulled a blood-soaked soda can out. Then another. And another.

They kept pulling out soda cans until there were about nine soda cans set in front of Tommy.

"I have one question: Why?" Gordon asked, giving Bubby a confused look.

"Just in case. See? They're useful!" Bubby shot back. "...I've been taking other things too."

Before Gordon could respond, Tommy started opening the soda cans. He lifted all the soda out once they were all open and shaped them into a new pair of legs.

"Moment of truth…" Tommy slipped the soda onto his broken legs like it was a pair of pants. It took a bit of time, but he was soon up and walking around, if not tripping a bit.

"Hah! Look at this!" Tommy yelled, showing it off.

"nice!" Benrey yelled, giving Tommy a high five.

Shortly after, however, Gordon heard footsteps  _ not  _ coming from Tommy. "Shit, I think it's the military," he whispered. "Hide."

They all ducked into a small crevice between the building and the cliffside, staring as a lone soldier cautiously walked out of the building, scanning the area with a gun in his hands.

It wasn't long until Gordon took a deep breath and stepped out, ignoring how Bubby would keep hitting his back to try and get him to not move out. However, Benrey and Coomer followed him. "Who are you?" Gordon asked, pointing his gun at the soldier.

The soldier flinched, stopping in his tracks. They didn't turn around, just staying there. That was until Benrey said "hey, idiot," and shot a bullet at his feet, which sent him sprinting off.

"Hey! Wait!" Gordon yelled, reaching out, but the soldier had already disappeared into the next building. There was no point in chasing him, he was already too far ahead.

"You scared him off." Gordon sighed, letting his hands fall to his side.

"You alerted him! He had a gun!" Bubby yelled.

"Yeah? We do too! It's five against one!"

"Can we not f-fight? Let's just move on, alright? I don't think it's anyone's fault." Tommy said, following after Bubby. Bubby huffed, starting to walk off.

"Let's just go." They said, still a bit angry over Gordon potentially endangering the group. Benrey and Gordon shared a look. Benrey shrugged before the group started following after Bubby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was actually supposed to be more this chapter but it turned into just the tommy scene I planned so


End file.
